


The Angel Sherlock

by jaradel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Past Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaradel/pseuds/jaradel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Watson is shot and killed in Afghanistan, God sends an angel to bring him back to Heaven.</p>
<p>Based on "The Angel" by Hans Christian Andersen (<a href="http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheAngel_e.html">English translation by Jean Hersholt</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Angel Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Challenge 2](http://letswritesherlock.tumblr.com/post/53511388655/challenge-1-is-still-open-until-june-30-but-were) of [Let's Write Sherlock](http://letswritesherlock.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. The prompt: _Choose a favorite fairy tale and rewrite it with characters from Sherlock._ I was looking for a fairy tale to use, something on which I could write a one-shot, and stumbled across "The Angel" by Hans Christian Andersen, which I had never read. As I read it, I was reminded of Benedict Cumberbatch as The Angel Islington in the radio play of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere", and the fic pretty much wrote itself after that.
> 
> Unbeta'ed, all mistakes are mine. I used John Watson's CV (from The Blind Banker) as reference material, which was helpfully transcribed [here](http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/sherlock-on-bbc-one/articles/68887/title/john-watsons-cv), and did some online research as well. I don't live in London (though I wish I did), so please don't hate on me too bad if my geography is off.

          In the year 2009, when a British army doctor by the name of John Watson was shot and killed in the Afghan desert, God sent a young angel to bring him home. John took one look at the angel and knew he must be dead, because he was quite certain that he had never seen a more beautiful creature in all his days. The angel was tall, slim, and ethereally pale, but his head was crowned with riotous dark curls, and his eyes were an otherworldly mixture of blue, green and gold. He had well-defined cheekbones and full pink lips with an exaggerated cupid’s bow, and a nose that just slightly turned up at the tip – oh yes, John thought, this was not an earthly beauty.

         The angel held out a long, pale elegant hand, and John took it. He felt himself pulled into the angel’s embrace.

         “I am here to take you home, John,” the angel said, his smooth baritone voice much deeper than John expected.

         “Who – who are you?” John asked, clinging to the celestial being as the angel spread his wings.

         “I am Sherlock, and my Father has sent me to bring you to Heaven. But before we go, we have a few places to visit.”

         “What places?”

         “The places you loved when you were alive. Your favourite places on Earth. We shall collect flowers from these places and present them to Father, and He will keep them so that they may bloom more brightly than they ever have on Earth. He will then select one flower out of that bouquet, the one He loves best, and upon that flower He will bestow a kiss. And that flower shall receive a voice, and will join the angels in their everlasting hymns of praise. Now do hold fast to me, John,” Sherlock said, as he beat his wings and they rose from the ground.

         John spared one last look at his broken body on the ground before turning his face toward Sherlock, wrapping his arms around the angel’s neck. Sherlock’s long, slender arms encircled John’s waist, and they clung together in this embrace as Sherlock soared high above the clouds, and turned westward.

         “So where to first, Sherlock?” asked John.

         “To the beginning,” Sherlock whispered in his ear.

         The pair flew above the clouds, but every so often John would steal a glance at the ground below before hurriedly burying his face in the angel’s neck; his mind still hadn’t quite wrapped itself around the whole “being dead” thing, and instincts of self-preservation (not to mention a touch of vertigo) kicked in whenever he dared look below him.

         Sherlock turned northward, and slowly started to descend through the clouds. John took another quick glance and realized they were over Europe, and apparently heading to the British Isles, judging by their trajectory. Sure enough, as they descended, the island nation he had once called his home grew larger in their field of vision, but they were not going to the south of England as he would have expected; rather, they were headed north. They passed over Birmingham, Manchester, Blackpool, and Glasgow, heading further and further north, until they touched down light as a feather on a small island in the Scottish Hebrides, next to a cottage.

         John finally unlatched his arms from around Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock removed his own arms from John’s waist, rustling his wings and folding them back not unlike a large raptor. John looked around him, and finally it clicked.

         “This cottage – my parents would bring my sister and me here when we were little. It was my grandfather’s cottage once.”

         “It was the first place you ever loved,” Sherlock said. “You came here as a boy, and played in the fields. You would pick bell heather and bring it back to your mum.”

         “I remember,” said John wistfully. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven the last time he’d visited the cottage, for shortly after that his father lost his job and found solace in the bottom of a bottle. They’d never returned to the island, and eventually the cottage was sold. John felt a wave of sadness and regret at the memory. He walked around the cottage, observing everything as if to memorize it, for this would surely be the last time he’d see this wondrous place. Behind the cottage lay a large meadow, and John could see patches of purple. Bell heather.

         “Sherlock?”

         “Yes, John?”

         “What about some bell heather? Would God like that, do you think?”

         “Of course, that is why I brought you here.”

         John smiled, and walked toward the nearest patch of bell heather, and picked the nicest sprigs he could find. He took them back to Sherlock, who favoured him with an enigmatic smile. The angel accepted the flowers and stored them carefully inside his tunic, before beckoning John into his arms again.

         “Won’t the flowers be crushed?”

         “Not at all, my tunic protects them. Wait and see – when we hand them to Father, they will be as fresh as when you picked them.”

         John clung to the angel once more, and they rose up into the slate grey sky. They flew below the clouds now, southward over the Scottish lowlands, over the north of England, and along the east coast. Sherlock started to descend, and when John looked down again, he could see that they were over Chelmsford, where he had gone to school. They touched down in front of the main building at King Edward VI Grammar School, which John had attended from Year 9 through sixth form.

         “You were happy at school,” Sherlock said without preamble. “When you first started here, you were apprehensive, unsure if you’d fit in since you didn’t start here in year 7 like most of the other students, but it was a refuge from your unstable home life, and often you would stay on the grounds long after the school day ended, to delay your return home.”

         They were walking now, and Sherlock maintained a protective arm about John’s shoulders. At first Sherlock was leading John, but as they walked John remembered a small garden behind the main building, and steered them in that direction. There they found a beautiful rose bush, but someone had broken off one of the main stems, and the flowers drooped on the ground. John leaned over and picked it up. “I would spend my afternoons here after the last bell, studying or just reading. I didn’t want to go home. Home meant fights and long silences and unbearable tension. Here, I could breathe.” He handed the stem of roses to Sherlock, who once again stored them in the folds of his tunic, and wrapped his arms around the angel’s neck once more.

         Sherlock carried them high above Chelmsford and they headed west, landing in London at a hospital near the south bank of the Thames. John let go of the angel and looked around. “We’re at St. Thomas' – King’s College,” he said.

         “Yes, where you studied medicine. You always wanted to be a doctor, and this is where your dream started to become reality. And sometimes, to clear your head, you’d wander over to Guy Street Park. Not a large park, like Regent’s, but a bit of green space where you could find some peace.”

         Sherlock and John walked to the park, seemingly ignored by other people. “No one can see us, can they?” John asked.

         “No. To them we are merely the softest of breezes as they walk past.”

         “How is it that you know so much about me?”

         “Father asked me to watch over you this past year, and from that time I was able to learn and deduce a great many things about you, John Watson.”

         “But if you’ve only been watching me a year, how could you know about my childhood, or my time in school?”

         “Your schooling I learned from your conversations with Bill Murray, your nurse. And your home life I learned from the infrequent yet tense conversations with your sister, Harriet. In at least one of those conversations, you mentioned the cottage in the Hebrides.”

         “So you’ve been spying on me?” There was a touch of indignance in John’s voice.

         “Not spying. Merely observing, as Father requested.”

         “But why me?”

         “I will tell you that story in time, but another story must be told first,” Sherlock replied cryptically.

         John spied a patch of wild daisies near one of the park benches. He picked a few and handed them to Sherlock. “Daisies are such a simple flower, easily overlooked in favour of roses or tulips, but I’ve always thought that daisies have an understated beauty all their own.”

         Sherlock smiled, and tucked the daisies into his tunic. “Well you would know, wouldn’t you,” he drawled.

         “How do you mean?”

         “Look at you, John. Average height, average build, average features. And yet you yourself possess a certain beauty and inner strength much like those wild daisies. I’ve seen that in you as I’ve been watching you.”

         John’s heart swelled with Sherlock’s praise. He had never known anyone like this unique creature, and wished fervently that he had known someone like him while he had still been alive. “And now, we have one more stop to make,” Sherlock said, holding out his arms once more for John’s embrace. Soon they were flying up over the city, only to land a short distance away. Sherlock set John down, and John backed away, looking around at the flats on both sides of the street.

         “I don’t recognize this place,” he said, bewildered.

         Sherlock smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t, you’ve never been here. This is Montague Street, Camden.”

         “So why are we here?”

         “Come and see,” the angel said, leading him down an alley and around behind the flats. There, amidst the rubbish bins, was a collection of debris – old clothes and furniture, a battered sofa, shattered test tubes and flasks, and a broken clay flowerpot, which had disgorged its resident onto the pavement – a wilted sunflower, the roots still attached.

         Sherlock picked up the flower and put it in his tunic with the others. “We shall take this one last flower with us, and as we fly home, I’ll tell you why.”

         John wrapped his arms around Sherlock once more, and as they flew heavenward, the angel began to tell the tale of the sunflower.

         “Many years ago, a little boy was born who was different from other little boys. He was very intelligent, but utterly lacking in even the most basic of social skills. He spent most of his time reading and performing experiments, and eventually learned to play the violin, but he had no friends – just two parents too involved in their own lives to concern themselves with their child, and an older brother who left for boarding school when the child was only four years old.

         “Eventually this child, too, went away to school, but he still had no friends. The other children picked on him, called him a “freak”. You see, this child had an amazing ability to observe details and make deductions based on those details, but this only served to alienate his classmates. So he buried himself in his studies, his experiments, and his music, and pushed all his pain and loneliness deep down inside, wondering if he would ever meet someone who would truly understand him.

         “Then this child, who’d grown into a man, went to university. He expected everyone there to treat him as he had always been treated, but there was another student, named Victor, who took a shine to the young man. He wasn’t scared off by the deductions and the social awkwardness; Victor seemed to think they were charming, rather than off-putting, qualities. Victor and the young man became fast friends. Then one day the young man, overrun as he often was with so many thoughts in his head, asked Victor if there was a way to quiet his brain just for a little while, just so he could _think_ – and Victor said yes, there was. He handed the young man a small bottle of cocaine. And so the young man started to use cocaine, and became addicted to the way it would stop the cacophony in his head, and allow him to channel his focus to one thing at a time. Of course, the high would wear off, the clarity would dissipate, and the cacophony would become louder than ever. Over time, the highs were shorter and shorter, and the coming-down was longer and longer. The young man wanted to stop – the post-high withdrawal just wasn’t worth the high itself – and when he told Victor this, Victor turned on him and left him.

         “The young man finally got clean, finished his studies and moved to London. He moved from place to place before finding a tiny flat on Montague Street that he could afford without a flatmate. He had always had an interest in solving problems, particularly ones associated with crimes, and eventually got the attention of a detective inspector at Scotland Yard, who would consult the young man from time to time on more difficult cases. He got a different kind of high from solving cases – one without the debilitating coming-down period. The young man and the detective inspector struck up a sort of friendship, and one day the detective inspector brought the young man that sunflower in the pot, to brighten his dreary rooms. The young man didn’t think much of it at the time, but then he realised that it was the first time he’d been given something freely, with no expectations or strings attached. And so he kept and nurtured that flower in its pot, giving it plenty of sunshine and water, and tending to it daily.

         “The cases helped the young man to focus, but it wasn’t enough, and in the times between cases and experiments the young man’s mind was tearing him apart. Observing so much, deducing so much and having no outlet for all of that intelligence – the young man’s mind was a rocket ready to launch but stuck on the launch pad. One day it was just too much, and the young man sought out his old fix. He bought some cocaine from a dealer rumoured to be reputable, took it home, and synthesized his preferred seven percent solution. But the dealer was not reputable at all - the cocaine had been contaminated. When the young man injected the solution into his veins, he knew within seconds that something was dreadfully wrong. He tried to dial 999, but he couldn’t make his fingers dial the number – just three digits – yet his hand just wouldn’t cooperate. He died on the floor of his flat, and the last thing he saw was that sunflower. For a long time after the flat stayed empty, but finally the landlord cleared it out and dumped everything by the rubbish bins – including the sunflower, the only freely-given gift the young man ever had.”

         John felt a wave of crushing sadness over him. “How do you know so much about this young man?” he croaked, looking up into the angel’s pale eyes.

         Sherlock looked down at him and smiled sadly. “Because that young man was me. I know my own flower very well.”

        At that moment they found themselves standing before God. Sherlock released John with an encouraging smile, and God enveloped John in His arms. When He let go, John felt a tugging at his back, and turning his head to look, he saw that he had lovely white wings, just like Sherlock. The dark-haired angel then presented the bouquet of flowers to his Father, who gratefully accepted them and held them close, but upon the sunflower He bestowed a kiss. The sunflower transformed, no longer withered but vibrantly yellow, and began to sing with a voice clearer than any bell.

         Sherlock beamed at his Father, then turned to John. “I have one more story - the story I promised I would tell you,” he said, holding out his hand.

         John grinned and took the proffered hand. “Lead on,” he said. They flew through the heavens, and as they flew Sherlock spoke.

         “People have an infinite number of possible futures. As it happens, Father told me of one of my possible futures when I became an angel. He told me of a future where I did not overdose, where I lived for another year and found a new flat, but it was a larger and more expensive flat and I would need a flatmate. He told me how an acquaintance of mine would introduce me to an army doctor invalided home from Afghanistan with a shoulder wound and a limp, who also was in need of a flatmate, and so they would agree to share the flat. But something extraordinary would happen between these two men. They wouldn’t just be flatmates, they would be friends – the best friend either of them had ever had – and they would have many adventures, solve many crimes, live through years of heart-breaking separation and eventually be reunited, and then have a very long and happy life together.”

         “That – that was us, you and me,” John breathed.

         “Yes,” Sherlock said sadly. “But when I died, that future ended, and so Father sent me to watch over you. When my life ended in 2008, your future also changed. I knew it was only a matter of time before we would meet.”

         “And now we have,” said John, grinning broadly.

         “Yes,” Sherlock said, as the two angels soared further upward. “And now we have all the time in the world.”


End file.
